Individual Journalists

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The Algerian philosopher and revolutionary writer, Frantz Fanon, wrote: “Africa is shaped like a gun, and Congo is its trigger. If that explosive trigger bursts, the whole of Africa will explode.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s largest country, is now caught up in the aftermath of its first proper election since independence from Belgium in 1960. Towards the end of last year one could say, after years of non-stop wars and massive carnage, the country was 90 percent bereft of fighting.

The authoritarian regime of President Joseph Kabila was still in power but at last it had been pressured to call an election by the African Union, the Western aid-givers, some of the big Western businesses that mine in the mineral-rich country and, not least, the Catholic Church.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Many know about Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat in Budapest, who led his embassy in a successful attempt to issue “protective passports” to at least 6,000 Hungarian Jews so they could escape the Nazi occupiers and travel to Sweden. He also helped forestall a planned massacre. He became the second person to be given honorary U.S. citizenship.

Many also know about the magnificent effort by the occupied Danes to use small boats to enable around 7,000 Jews to cross the water that separates Denmark and Sweden to get them to neutral Sweden.

And about the German businessman, Oskar Schindler, who later became the star of Stephen Spielberg’s masterpiece film Schindler’s List that showed how he used his business in Poland as a means of sheltering a thousand Jews.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Those, like some highly placed people in the U.S. government and Congress, who say it is inevitable that Taiwan with its population of 24 million will one day return as part of mainland China rather as Hong Kong did, have really missed a beat. There is simply no likelihood that an overwhelming majority of Taiwanese will ever agree to that.

The leader of the traditionally independence-minded Democratic Progressive party, President Tsai Ing-wen, now plays down independence and argues for the status quo. President Xi Jinping’s recent speech reiterated China’s long held view that it would use force if necessary to prevent Taiwan's formal independence. He is shooting down a bird that will never fly.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman remains at large, the unapologetic murderer (according to the CIA) of the respected dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. Even though President Donald Trump came close to accusing him of the deed, he has pulled back, citing Saudi Arabia’s importance as an oil producer and arms buyer.

The Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, is too preoccupied with Brexit to want to give up an important market. President Emanuel Macron of France is silent after an initial outburst. Now pressed by the demands of the demonstrators, he also wants to keep sources of revenue that come from sales of jets.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The general election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has been postponed yet again – to December 30. Will this country, the largest and potentially the richest in Africa, ever escape from its continuous dictatorship, and its propensity to civil war? It’s not so long ago that Susan Rice, then the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was talking about the Congo as the site of “Africa’s First World War”.

Has the UN at long last really pacified this country that has been continuously in a state of unrest since the Belgian colonisers, after effectively looting the country, fled in 1960, turning the country over to a hastily improvised African government?

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In the Western world there is a constant debate about democracy. In the U.S. the Democrats charge quite correctly that the House’s constituencies are gerrymandered against them. Then there’s the insoluble issue of the Senate’s anti-democratic bias where its numbers are tilted against the Democrats by the fact that rural, less populated, states which tend to be conservative, elect two senators, just as do the Democratic-inclined, heavily populated, states.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The whole debate about Brexit has had a weird quality about it from beginning to end. Prime Minister Theresa May voted in the referendum two and half years ago to remain in the European Union but then as a quid pro quo for being made prime minister she has led the charge to implement Brexit.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, voted to remain but has made it clear that he too prefers out, albeit keeping the UK in the Customs Union.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – “We need jaw jaw not war war,” said Winston Churchill rather hypocritically. Still, he would be glad to see that the number of wars around the world has fallen dramatically since the end of the Second World War, despite the wars in Korea, Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Pakistan versus India, Central America, Cyprus, ex-Yugoslavia, Syria and now Yemen.

Compared with centuries past this has been a remarkable era, yet one not often acknowledged.

Interstate wars, apart from India versus Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen, have vanished off the map. The wars that remain are civil wars. The democracies do not go to war with each other, as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher long ago observed.

Balochistan – the largest of the four provinces of Pakistan in terms of land area, forming the southwestern region of the country – is aggrieved at not getting its due share of development out of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), flagship of the Belt and Road Initiative. This has caused resentment and, combined with the suppression of Baloch rights and aspirations, is a powder keg.

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The storming of the Chinese consulate in Karachi on November 24 by three heavily armed suicide squad members of a Baloch separatist group is loaded with meaning and message. It should be read correctly for understanding what gave rise to the attack and how the conditions that caused it may be eliminated.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – How can Saudi Arabia be brought low? If the King won’t remove from power his 33-year old son, Prince Mohammad bin Salman, there may be no alternative but to do battle (non-violently) with its regime.

There seems to be no doubt that it was bin Salman who gave the order to murder Saudi Arabia’s dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

This is not the only reason to take up (non-violent) arms against Saudi Arabia. Others are its massive buying of Western military hardware. Another is its war in Yemen where it has killed tens of thousands of civilians. Another is that it still follows the intolerant strictures of the Wahabi sect of Islam.

This interactive WHO dashboard/map provides the latest global numbers and numbers by country of COVID-19 cases on a daily Basis.

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